Prime Minister Orbán: ‘More Terror Attacks Are Being Prepared’

“It is a fact that one should act cautiously not to [unnecessarily] limit the rights of freedom, but people’s security comes first,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday morning during his regular interview with public radio.

He added that the government has reliable information that terror attacks are being prepared against Hungarian citizens similar to those that took place in Paris last November. That’s why the Hungarian government has put forward a proposition to modify the Fundamental Law to give government powers that enable it “to prevent terror threats from becoming terror acts.” Every European government should have the powers necessary to protect its citizens.

In this lively debate, PM Orbán said, “everybody preserves his own character, wolves do not become vegetarians.” His government, and others of the center-right, seek powers to better protect people, while the forces of the left are “pro-migration, so they do not consider the terror threat as a real threat and furthermore, they said migration was a pseudo-problem. When it turned out that [illegal] migrants are coming, among them terrorists as well, they said the right thing to do is to let them in. If Hungary had a left wing government, we would have a situation like Cologne, Paris and Brussels in this country,” he added.

“We said before everybody else, that [migration] will become a huge problem and we should build up border protection possibilities. We were booed, but today everybody is doing the same. Then, we said that terrorists were also let in because security services all over Europe signaled this. Again, we were booed, then [the attacks in] Paris came,” the prime minister said. He added that we continue to face terror threats, and that’s why every government in Europe should have the tools to respond appropriately. “In this regard, Europe should be looked at as a whole,” he said, because once a terrorist enters Europe, it becomes difficult to monitor his movement.

On British plans for reform of the European Union, PM Orbán emphasized that “people coming from outside England should not be discriminated against” and no one should limit the number of people working in the UK [from other countries in the EU]. Some 55 thousand Hungarians currently work in the UK, according to the UK’s own report dated 2014. This number is smaller than the number of Germans working in the UK, so it would be a mistake to consider British plans that affect only citizens of the new member states. The upcoming meeting of the Visegrad countries will focus on this part of the proposal in particular, and the V4 aim to formulate a unified position on the issue.

But it’s about more than that. The British want to change much more about the European Union in what is a complex reform proposal. What they do “takes the EU ahead,” Orbán said, adding that “what the British are saying is in line with the interest of Hungarians.” A more competitive EU is needed and national parliaments should have greater influence. “We agree that member states should have a bigger influence because we too trust our Parliament more than the one of the EU.”